With an R-rating and a stark title like "The Gunman," there's little doubt this movie will deliver lots of brutal violence and mayhem to the target audience. Director Pierre Morel brings his action chops from "Taken" to this effort. He clearly remembers...

The second installment in the teen dystopian series "Divergent" came in first at the weekend box office.
Lionsgate's "Insurgent," starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James, opened to more than $52 million in ticket sales. Last week's champ, Disney's...

Sean Penn's "The Gunman" was no match for the rebel kids of "Insurgent."
The second installment in the "Divergent" series easily topped the box office with $54 million from 3,875 theaters, according Rentrak estimates Sunday. Penn's geopolitical...

Maybe in retrospect, the question shouldn't have been: “Why are we skeptical of any pure action movie that doesn't star Liam Neeson” but, "isn't it amazing we set that skepticism aside so often for Liam Neeson in the first place?"
This...

US trains Iraqi security forces as battle to recapture Tikrit from Islamic State group goes on
As the U.S. mission to Iraq expands, so do its efforts to arm and train the country's security forces to combat the Islamic State group, with large-scale operations continuing to recapture territory from the Sunni militants.
Hundreds of American advisers are working at the Camp Taji military base just north of Baghdad to train Iraqi forces on issues like weaponry and better coordination and integration of...

"Insurgent," the second film in the YA-based "Divergent" film series, continued its strong start going into Saturday, pulling in an estimated $21.3 million, according to box office estimates.
Even with a healthy beginning, industry watchers speculate that "Insurgent" may fall short of its initial $60-million projection at the domestic box office, putting it closer to or even below the $54.6-million opening weekend for "Divergent" last year.
Still, filmgoers are giving "Insurgent," which stars...

Madonna has been dissed, and she is not happy. The 56-year-old proclaimed Queen of Pop, with more record sales than any woman in history, received a distinctly unroyal reception by the British radio station BBC Radio 1, which recently banished her latest single, "Living For Love," from its playlist.
Every generation has its own music and its own musical royalty, and the British, above all, are especially protective of the royal line of succession. Apparently Madonna's devoted subjects are too old for...

"Insurgent," the second part of the "Divergent" film series, kicked off its box office run with a healthy $4.1 million in ticket sales from late night showings Thursday.
That came up short of the $4.9 million the first "Divergent" film earned in its Thursday debut.
Shailene Woodley returns as Tris, the hero from the young adult novels by Veronica Roth on which the movies are based.
Going into the weekend, analysts projected that the sequel would take in around $60 million at the domestic box...

The biggest contribution that star, producer and part screenwriter Sean Penn adds to the perplexing political action movie "The Gunman" is his guns.
It's not how the film reflects Penn's commitment to international activism as it chases trade exploiters from the Congo to London, Barcelona and Gibraltar. It's not his diving awards-show deep into the character of Jim Terrier, who atones for his history as a corporate sniper by killing a lot of guys.
It's his guns. His new, abnormally inflated arms. If any...

Logic would dictate that production of an action movie would start with the high-intensity physical elements. Director Pierre Morel doesn't follow such logic.
"When I make an action movie, I start with the connection between the characters," Morel says. "It's the characters who need to drive the movie. Any action in the film needs to come naturally."
The French director used that approach to make the 2008 release "Taken," one of the biggest action movies of the past decade. Liam Neeson's character...